


room for one more troubled soul

by grassandcitrus



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Past Relationship(s), Pining, reflecting on f!ss/nate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-30 12:35:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10876914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grassandcitrus/pseuds/grassandcitrus
Summary: It was probably bad to be jealous of a dead man, but Hancock had never advertised himself as a good man.





	room for one more troubled soul

**Author's Note:**

> I used the name Iris because that's the name of my sole survivor, but otherwise not much else is changed from the stock sole survivor (Iris has short red hair and glasses, but if that had mattered I would have included it in the story itself, wouldn't I?). This is dedicated to my love of Hancock and my annoyance that people keep forgetting about the ss's spouse.

She'd never told them which house used to be hers. 

She hadn’t even told them that this used to be where she lived. It was assumed, but not because of any sharing on her part. She was more than happy to help develop it as a place to live here and now, and it turned out to be a good idea - Hancock had no idea how this area hadn’t already been developed by someone, anyone, really. How raiders hadn’t set up a base here, he was still unsure. It was good for them that they hadn’t, though, because Sanctuary was now the bustling home to more than 20 people, and in this day and age that was quite the feat. Due to the efforts of Iris and the rest of the settlers and minutemen, this former slice of suburbia had become a haven for many of them. 

No one was particularly bothered by her lack of sharing about this part of her life - except Piper, but she knew when she was crossing a line - and Hancock was certainly not one to push for personal details. Sure, he’d told her about his life, but that he had offered up without the expectation of repayment. The only repayment he could ever ask for he already had, and that was her friendship and esteem - though that niggling desire for something other than friendship was still there, he wasn’t about to push his luck. The fact that she was even willing to put up with his ugly mug on the regular was more than he could ask for. 

It wasn’t hard to figure out which house was Iris’s, despite her lack of sharing. Everyone had come to the understanding that she wasn’t trying to hide her past, but rather she just didn’t wanna dwell on it. That said, it was hard to think that she wasn’t dwelling on it a bit when there was only one house in the entire place where the pre-war furniture hadn’t been chopped up to make new stuff. There was also only one house with a crib in it, and while people didn’t usually question what Iris thought was useful and what wasn’t, most people knew that it was unlikely they’d have a use for an old world crib anytime soon.

So knowing that Iris wasn’t one to dwell, Hancock knew something was very wrong when he walked into what everyone knew used to be her house and found her laying on her back on the floor of what used to be a living room. He didn’t see any chems or alcohol around her, which meant she was likely completely sober, and completely sober and laying on the ground when there was a perfectly good couch just five feet away is hardly a good sign. 

His sense told him he should just leave her alone - of all of the people here, he was not the one prepared to talk about emotions with the woman he most definitely loved. He could have gone and gotten Preston or Piper to speak to her, since they were both messing with stuff elsewhere in the settlement, but something about seeing her there made him hesitate. For one, she most certainly was already aware he had walked into the room, and it would only be weird for her if he fetched someone to talk to her. Secondly, and more importantly, it hurt him that _she_ might be hurting, and he should at least give her the chance to talk to him about it if she wants.

Still, he felt like maybe this conversation would be better if he had some mentats or anything, really. But he owed her some sobriety.

“Iris?” he ventured, “are you okay?”

“It’s Nate and I’s anniversary today,” she responded, without any sort of preamble. The frankness took the wind out of him, because he had expected to have to pry a little more than that. It also took a moment for him to connect Nate with the dead husband; he almost always just thought of him as that. It was easier to compartmentalize “dead husband” than the human being he had been. Probably a much better human than he was, even back when he could be called one.

He looked at her for a moment, deciding what to do with this information. Finally, he went with the simple, “do you wanna talk about it?”

She rolled over and looked him in the eyes as she said, “do you want to listen to it?”

“If you’re upset I wanna do what I can to help,” Hancock told her quickly, “listening is one of the things I can do.”

Iris huffed out a little laugh and sat up, leaning against the front of what was left of the couch. Hancock came further into the room and sat on the floor next to her so that they were shoulder to shoulder against the ratty couch. 

Iris began to talk.

“We used to have this rule that we couldn’t leave the house before dinner on our anniversary. We would stay in and pull all the curtains and watch movies or play games or maybe just read in the same room. Then we’d get all dressed up for dinner, but we usually didn’t go anywhere fancy. We just liked the dressing up part. Last year we did go somewhere fancy, one of the restaurants downtown completely overrun with super mutants now. Their food was actually pretty mediocre,” Iris said, laughing a little as she looked over at Hancock. He wasn’t sure what she read in his expression, but she leaned her head on his shoulder before she kept talking. “But afterwards we decided we’d go and walk along the water in our nice clothes which was a mistake because of course we both ended up wet and covered in sand. He wasn’t silly like that with most people - he told me that he reserved it for special occasions - but he was always silly with me. I guess he just didn’t want his military buddies knowing that his serious act was a bunch of bullshit. When we got back covered in grit and saltwater our sitter looked at us like ‘You’re too old to be doing stuff like that, you have a child’ or whatever it was she said. I told her that we had plenty of time to be serious later, and of course I didn’t realize then how true that was. But I’m glad we went out and did that. Because not long after that Nate was dead and Shaun was kidnapped, and I was walking in the graves of the people I once knew.”

She looked up at him after that and said, “Holy shit, sorry, that was morbid as fuck.”

“Don’t apologize,” Hancock responded, trying not to be distracted by how her body was completely pressed up against his side and _now was not the time for that shit_. “You’ve earned the right to be morbid.”

“It’s just that I try not to complain too much because I know everyone is used to this, they grew up in this world. I don’t want to seem like the pampered pre-war model mother who’s so gripped with grief she can’t do anything,” Iris said, “Not that I’m doing a good job of that right now.”

“You’re allowed to feel grief, y’know,” Hancock told her, “We all do. Can you seriously tell me after all this time you’ve spent with the people here that you think we don’t feel grief? That we don’t complain? Hell, my entire life has basically been a complaint against the hand I’ve been dealt. The people of the Commonwealth think that you’re invincible because you never show weakness, but you don’t have to feel like you can’t talk to us. If not me, then any number of the people you talk to here. I’m sure Valentine would be willing to listen to your gripes, and Piper might be willing to put down the reporter hat for a moment just to listen to you. Hell, MacCready likes you enough he probably wouldn’t even charge you for it.”

“And you?” Iris asked, teasingly. It was so out of place that Hancock was a bit surprised at first.

“What does it look like I’m doing right now,” Hancock told her, elbowing her. She laughed at him, and Hancock wasn’t sure how laughter was allowed to make him hard but it did.

It was probably bad to be jealous of a dead man, but Hancock had never advertised himself as a good man. Her story had confirmed what he had already assumed, that he was the model husband and citizen, basically the polar opposite of Hancock himself. He didn’t need to see him to know that he was probably extremely attractive as well. It would only be fitting, when Iris looked - well, the way she did.

“The thing is,” Iris said, knocking Hancock out of his musings, “the thing that really upsets me now is how much I’ve gotten used to all of this. My old life seems like a half remembered dream now. And I don’t even ache for it much anymore. I love Nate, and I’ll always love him, but I’ve moved on and I don’t know how to feel about the fact that I rarely think of him anymore.”

“Well, I never knew this Nate guy but if he loved you the way I imagine he did - the way you deserve - then I figure he would forgive you for moving on. The Commonwealth isn’t kind to people who can’t roll with the punches. It doesn’t make you a bad person,” Hancock told her.

“I suppose so,” Iris said, looking at him. Sitting shoulder to shoulder like they were, looking into Iris’s eyes put them close enough to kiss, and close enough that Hancock had a hard time thinking of much else. 

Iris looked thoughtful. “The problem isn’t just that though,” she continued, “it isn’t just that I don’t think about him all the time. It’s the fact that I have actually moved on. As in, I love someone else, and it feels kind of like a betrayal, even if I still love him and everything that we had then.”

Hancock did his best not to react to that bombshell of information when he said, “What I said earlier still stands. You deserve someone, if that’s what you want.” He was trying his best not to think on what she just said but he couldn’t help it. It was much easier to be jealous of the perfect, but dead, husband than it would be of one of the very much so alive people Iris dealt with regularly. Much easier to pine when he knew she had no interest in anyone. Who was it, he couldn’t help wondering. Was it Piper? Iris was pretty close to her, and god knows she didn’t keep Piper around for her aim. Or maybe it was Preston? It would make sense, for Iris to like someone as morally upstanding as the minuteman. They certainly seemed close. Or, god forbid it was that asshole Danse she kept around despite his bullshit brotherhood ideals. He’s probably just like her dead husband. Now that haunted him even more. Imagine having to deal with the woman he loved making doe eyes at the man who thinks he’s a monster. Not that most people don’t, but he’s so much more overt about it in an “eradicate all-

“I can hear you thinking,” Iris said.

“What,” Hancock deadpanned.

“You’re trying to figure out who I was referring to, aren’t you?” Iris asked, “You’re not very subtle, y’know.”

“Never tried to be,” Hancock said, attempting to cover his embarrassment. It’s not unusual for someone to be curious who she meant, though Iris could probably tell Hancock was gone for her anyway. It isn’t hard to imagine that Hancock would fall for someone as good as her.

“Don’t try to guess it,” Iris told him, “It won’t do you any good. You’ll just run in circles.”

“Then just tell me and I won’t have to,” Hancock responded cheekily. 

“Is that where we are now? You’re extorting information from me?” Iris asked with a glint in her eye.

“I thought you were still sharing, y’know, to get stuff off your chest? I’m not prying, I’m helping,” Hancock responded.

“Of course you are,” Iris responded. She didn’t go on immediately, but Hancock could tell she was about to.

“I keep trying to figure out if Nate would like him. Would he approve? For a while there I assumed he would hate the very thought of me moving on to anyone, but then I realized that was silly. Nate was always very kind and understanding, I know he wouldn’t hold it against me. It just feels a bit weird. So more recently I’ve been trying to figure out if Nate would approve. If he’s someone Nate would like or anything,” Iris told Hancock, and Hancock mentally crossed Piper off his list of potential interests. Iris continued to talk as if she was just musing to herself. Hancock might as well have not been there at all as Iris continued, “He’s not like Nate, not really. I mean, in some ways he is, but not in a lot of the more obvious ways. I think Nate would like him, if he got to know him like I did.”

Hancock mentally crossed off Danse as well, which was a relief of monumental proportions. He figured Nate was probably like Danse, and that wasn’t a comparison that sat well with him but it was all he could imagine. 

“This is silly,” Iris said, as if jolted out of her thoughts. Hancock looked over at her to find that she had been looking at him already. “I’m talking around all of this.

“Well, talk to all of this then,” Hancock said in what he thought was a snarky response, but he didn’t expect Iris to actually laugh at.

“I already am. Kinda,” Iris said.

“What,” Hancock said.

“I’ve been talking all coy about who it is as if I’m a 12 year old describing her first crush to her friends, when in reality I’m just trying to avoid what I’m talking about,” Iris told him, “When in reality I’ve been talking to the person all along.”

“What,” Hancock repeated.

“It’s you I’m talking about, dumbass,” Iris said.

“Um,” Hancock said, not entirely processing how they had gotten from dead husband to loving Hancock in the same conversation. It didn’t feel entirely real.

“I know you’re sober right now and emotions talk is hard when you haven’t had anything, so I’m sorry for dropping that on you right now, but I needed to. I feel better now, even if you’re probably-”

“You were serious?” Hancock interrupted.

“Of course I was serious,” Iris said indignantly.

“My ugly mug?” Hancock asked, incredulous.

“Goddamn, Hancock, yes you, not your ugly mug but your handsome mug,” Iris said.

“You,” Hancock stuttered, “Listen, I want you to know I’m very happy about this realization, but I definitely wasn’t expecting it.”

“Clearly,” Iris said with a smile.

“You like-”

“Love”

“Love me?” Hancock repeated. “I love you too but wow, it’s a good thing I am sober now because I know I would have assumed this was a trip otherwise.”

Iris laughed, and Hancock got jitters all over.

“I mean it,” Iris said, moving closer. Hancock knew what she was going for and without a second thought leant in to meet her. Hancock could feel her hand rubbing over the side of his face while they kissed, rubbing little circles into the rough skin of his cheek. He cautiously, as if he still wasn’t entirely sure it was okay to, moved his arm around her and put it on her waist. She moved into the kiss, knocking his hat off in the process. 

“This seems a weird on your anniversary,” Hancock pointed out dumbly as they moved out of the kiss.

“You said it was fine to move on,” Iris said.

“Yeah, well, that I did,” Hancock said.

“No take backs,” Iris said, tongue-in-cheek. 

“That’s hardly my intention. I just did not expect that out of this conversation at all,” Hancock responded.

“I can see that,” Iris responded. Hancock was silent a beat.

“You think your husband would have liked me?” Hancock asked incredulously.

Iris smiled at him. “You’d have grown on him. You tend to do that to people.”


End file.
